Guest Post: Shawn Thomas Odyssey (The Wizard of Dark Street)

Today stopping by the blog is Shawn Thomas Odyssey, author of The Wizard of Dark Street! He's here to tell us a bit about his favorite books and his recommendations.




Reading is a part of writing. It is a cycle. Put something in and something comes back out. The more diverse the input, the more original the output. For instance, if a writer reads nothing but cold war spy novels, then what comes out of them will likely be pretty similar. But if they threw in, let’s say, some Ray Bradbury, a little Tom Robbins and a few Cormack McCarthy novels, something very different might take place. Maybe they’d still write a spy novel, but it might take place on a desolate, post apocalyptic Mars and involve deciphering secret messages through smelling various bottles of perfume. (Hey, I kind of like that). The books that a writer puts into his or her head are likely the biggest influences on their work, whether they are aware of it or not.

Interestingly, as I think about the books that I have read over the past few years, especially the ones I was reading during the writing and editing process of The Wizard Of Dark Street, I’m struck by the interesting and eclectic range of words and stories I’ve been putting into my head, some of them in my genre of writing, and many of them not. One thing I’m sure of, however: if it’s a book I loved, it influenced me in some way as a writer. Heck, if I loved it, it influenced not only my writing but my life: the way I think and behave. Even if the book was nothing like my chosen genre, I can guarantee it still had an impact on what I was typing. It’s like it all gets scrambled up in my head, most of it I think on the subconscious level, and then sits there, stewing, marinating, waiting for the right moment; waiting for the muse to scoop it up and present the dish to the judges in a form that I, the author, would never have been able to predict.

Here is a list of some of the books I read and loved over the past few years while writing The Wizard of Dark Street. Not nearly all of them.

Pillars of the Earth: Ken Follett

World Without End: Ken Follett

The Harry Potter series: J.K. Rowling

A Series of Unfortunate Events: Lemony Sincket

Leaving the Bellweathers: Kristin Clark Venuti

Ender’s Game: Orson Scott Card

Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell: Susanna Clark

The Green Mile series: Stephen King

Echo falls mystery series: Peter Abrahams

The Name of The Wind: Patrick Rothfuss

1984: George Orwell

The Road: Cormac McCarthy

A Prayer for Owen Meany: John Irving

Lord of the Rings: J.R.R Tolkin

A song of Ice and Fire series (A Game of Thrones): by George R. R. Martin.

The Wizard of Dark Street is available in bookstores nationwide and online in both hardback and eBook formats.

Please visit: http://www.thewizardofdarkstreet.com/

Where you can find Shawn:
Website
Goodreads
Blog
Twitter

Teenage Garage Sale with Alex Epstein (The Circle Cast) + Giveaway!

Stopping by the blog today is Alex Epstein, author of The Circle Cast! He's here to tell us some of the things that would be in a garage sale in his teenage years if he was to have one.



Stiff Records T-shirt, with the slogan “F*** Art, Let’s Dance.” I still have it, rips and all.

Red silk smoking jacket with black satin trim. I picked it up at my high school’s thrift store, along with a cashmere overcoat. I was in the theatre clique, and at the time we all wore thrift store clothes and jeans with holes in them. The smoking jacket was too big, and sort of ‘40s, but it was just so cool I couldn’t not get it.

One velvet doublet from a Shakepeare production. Basically a black velvet jacket with a high collar, very Swingin’ London 1965, except that it was New York in the 1980’s.

I didn’t wear either of these jackets except at parties. But I treasured them, because they seemed to come from different worlds than mine.

Case of Korbel Brut champagne. I never had that many people at my parties in high school, maybe because I only invited people I actually liked. I’d have like a dozen people, tops. But I remember buying a case of inexpensive but drinkable champagne. I didn’t have a fake i.d. or anything, but it was New York in the ‘80’s. I might have had trouble buying a fifth of vodka, a case of champagne was okay.

About 300 records on vinyl, mostly New Wave. Never Mind the Bollocks Here’s the Sex Pistols. The Clash. London Calling. Talking Heads ’77. More Songs About Buildings and Food. Parallel Lines. My Life in the Bush of Ghosts. A few folk albums. Court and Spark. The Woodstock soundtrack. And Beatles and Stones.

Around 20 wargames. These were elaborate simulations of historical battles, with paper maps and cardboard chips representing the units, and twenty-page rule books in 6 point type. I used to replay Waterloo and beat the English every time. Unfortunately I didn’t have any friends who played wargames. The only time I got to play against a real live player was when I went downtown to the game publisher’s office on 23rd Street and playtest new games from 6 to midnight on Friday nights. My folks would give me cab fare home, but I’d walk up from 23rd Street to 96th Street to save money, and then take a cab to my folks’ apartment on 114th Street and Riverside. In those days, you didn’t want be between 96th Street and 110th Street after dark.

One boom box. Occasionally I would walk somewhere and blast music along the way. A lot of people were doing that then. But mostly they were not blasting Duke Ellington.

One portrait of me by Abstract Impressionist painter Gerry Monroe. My parents have lots of artist friends. Gerry came to visit and wound up doing my portrait.

A slew of posters from the Venice Biennale. My folks took me to Venice when I was 15. They’d just plaster one poster over another there, until they were an inch thick and falling off the walls. I pulled one stack of posters off a wall, rolled them up and took them home. Then I soaked the glue off them in the bathtub and gently pulled them apart to see what the posters looked like. Some of them were pretty snappy.

One Shure professional quality microphone. I was briefly in a band called The Girls, because there were no girls in it. I wrote lyrics; my roommate Mike Jung wrote the songs. I still have a couple of recordings of our songs; they don’t entirely suck.

Where you can find Alex:
Website
Goodreads
Blog

Giveaway!

As part of the blog tour Alex is offering 4 ebook copies for giveaway. Just leave a comment and the winner will be chosen at the end of the week out of all the stops in that week. So if you comment in other post you will have better chances of winning! =) If you would like to see the other stops you can click here.

Guest Post: Steve Watkins (What Comes After)

So today we have Steve Watkins, author of What Comes After, stopping by the blog today! This is one of few things I've read recently that actually made me think deeper about things.

Why did you decide to write about such a heavy topic?

In a way, the story of Iris in WHAT COMES AFTER started several years ago when I was sitting in a juvenile and domestic relations court during an emergency removal hearing, reading an autopsy report on a little 5-year-old boy. I can't use his real name so I'll call him Donny. He had more than 40 pronounced contusions, two broken ribs, a broken collar bone, and a skull fracture--all in various stages of healing, indicating that he had sustained the injuries over an extended period of time. In the autopsy photos he appeared emaciated, as if he'd been starved. He also had two severe traumas to his abdomen caused by what the medical examiner said were powerful external blows. The second, and most recent, was the one that killed him.

None of us who worked on that case, which lasted two long years and led to terrible revelations about Donny and his siblings, have ever been the same. It was my job as a Court Appointed Special Advocate to investigate Donny's story, and the stories of his brothers and sisters, and to write a narrative that would bring those children to life for the judge presiding over the case-- and, in a way, to bring Donny back to life, if only in my report, and if only for a little while, and if only for the court. None of us doubted that the surviving children would be scarred by what happened to them, but thanks to the love and dedication of a lot of people involved in the case-- therapists, attorneys, social workers, foster parents, teachers--Donny's brothers and sisters ended up with families who loved them and promised to take care of them. They had a chance-- at least a chance--to recover, and grow up safe, and live meaningful lives.

When I read an article two years ago in our local newspaper about a girl who had been badly beaten by her cousin, on orders from her guardian aunt, I was struck by how few details there were about the girl--though that is usual in the case of underage victims, who are rarely identified to the public by police or prosecutors. The article didn't say what her life had been like before she was beaten, or what happened to her after, except for this one sentence: "The girl is now in foster care." The more I thought about that girl and what happened to her, though, the more I felt drawn to tell her story, too--as I imagined it, for a wider audience than the court. That story became WHAT COMES AFTER. I knew the girl in the article wasn't just another
foster care kid, and she wasn't just another victim. She must have had a life, and a story worth telling. All children do.

After reading this, it really made me think of those people who have no heart and honestly don't care about others. I guess they just don't appreciate the life around them.

Steve Watkins' Website

Guest Post: Savita Kalhan (The Long Weekend) + Giveaway!

Today we have Savita Kalhan, author of The Long Weekend, stopping by! It's long but worth reading!

When you had the idea for The Long Weekend did you think it would turn out the way it did or did it change along the way?

Hi Diana, and thank you for inviting me to your blog today.

What sparked the idea for the book was a flyer that went round the local schools warning that a large silver Mercedes or BMW had been seen cruising outside schools and the driver had tried to snatch children. Everyone who does the school run knows how busy and chaotic that time of the day is, but no one really expects something like that to happen. Parents were horrified and kids were put on high alert.

What it did for me was make me wonder how something like that could happen. I thought it couldn’t happen very easily, but my thirteen year old nephew told me stories of how sometimes kids didn’t know which parent, or friend of a parent, or other parent in the school, might be picking them up.

A scenario came to my mind of how a couple of kids could be abducted terrifyingly easily as long as the circumstances were right. Child abductions happen, it’s a fact, and no matter how aware kids are of stranger-danger, they still happen, and no matter how much you preach to kids to not to talk to strangers, or get into a stranger’s car, in the right circumstances it still happens.

As soon as the scenario came to my mind, my characters arrived instantly. I started writing straight away with Sam’s voice speaking loud and clear. I didn’t need to write the book in the first person because even in the third person, Sam’s voice had a life of its own. His voice remained with me for the duration of the book. And it was still there when I wrote the Epilogue a few months after the book was finished.

When I started the book, beyond the idea and the characters, I had little more than an inkling where the book might go, how it would get there, or what my characters might go through, but as I began to write, the story flowed with Sam’s voice, he dictated the pace, the suspense, and the tone. And once begun, the story didn’t stray from its path.

By the time I got to the end of the book, I knew it was more or less exactly the way it should be, except I had stopped before writing the epilogue: Six Years Later. I wrote that last chapter several months later – after I had sat on the book for a few months and then sent it out to lots of agents. When I got my agent, the wonderful Anne Dewe at Andrew Mann Literary Agency, she suggested that it would be a good idea to go back and write a closing chapter. I’m so glad I did. The story would not have been the same without it.

Lots of people who know me have said that they didn’t think I would take the story as far as it did, or that they were surprised that I didn’t back away from the central theme sooner. Others who don’t know me at all, but who have picked up the book to read, are fearful of where it might take them, how far into Sam and Lloyd’s nightmare they’ll go. One agent even asked me to turn it into a simple kidnap story. But once I had started writing the book, I couldn’t stop, and I had to let it take me as far as it wanted to go. I couldn’t, and wouldn’t, change that in a million years. It would almost have felt like a betrayal of Sam and Lloyd, and other kids like them.

Sam knows that he and his friend Lloyd made a colossal mistake when they accepted the ride home. They have ended up in a dark mansion in the middle of nowhere with man who means to harm them. But Sam doesn't know how to get them out. They were trapped, then separated. Now they are alone. Will either of them get out alive? This gripping and hypnotic thriller will have you reading late into the night.

The Details

-There will be 1 lucky winner.

-This giveaway is international!

-You don't have to be a follower though it's always appreciated!

-Deadline is 11:59pm February 11th Pacific time. There's a clock on the left.

-Winner will be announced the 13th and will have 48 hours to respond to my email.

All you have to do is fill out the form!

Guest Post: Kari Lee Townsend (Fused Playlist!)

Today we have Kari Lee Townsend, author of Fused, to talk to us a bit about how music connects with writing. I think It's always interesting to see how an author uses music to write!

BOOKS FEED THE MIND, WHILE MUSIC FEEDS THE SOUL

Music can be so inspiring to authors. The lyrics of a song are like words in a book…they tell a story. Often times that story feeds our imaginations, creating vivid images and reminding us of an event that’s happened in our own lives, or making us dream of things we wish would happen to us. Many authors get their inspiration for ideas for a book from the lyrics of songs. That’s sometimes the case for me.

I know several writers who can’t write a word unless they are listening to music. I can’t write unless it’s completely silent. However, I do a lot of prewriting in my head while listening to music. I like to use music to get in the mood for certain scenes I’m about to write. So I’ll listen to upbeat, fast songs that make me want to move before I’m about to write an action adventure scene. Or I’ll listen to sad songs that make me want to cry before I’m about to write a deeply emotional scene. And when I’m about to write a romantic scene, I’ll listen to songs that melt my heart and keep a smile on my face all day. I did that for both THE SAMANTHA GRANGER SERIES: FUSED, as well as my adult mystery series that comes out in August called TEMPEST IN THE TEA LEAVES: A FORTUNE TELLER MYSTERY.

Some of my favorite artists are Daughtry, Nickelback, John Meyer, Michael Buble, Faith Hill and Taylor Swift. Music and books really are personal choices. There is no right or wrong choice. What you choose is a reflection of who you are as a person, so go forth and choose something that fills a need and feeds your soul J Then tell me all about it. I love to hear from my readers. You can find out more about me and my books at www.karileetownsend.com

Guest Post: Marina Budhos (Tell Us We're Home)

Today I have Marina Budhos, author of Tell Us We're Home stopping by the blog! I think this is something that affects everyone, not just those living in the U.S.

How do you think that immigrants from around the world are changing the U.S. and those that live here?

It used to be that we thought of the suburbs as all-American. You know, the white-picket fence, the yellow school busses, moms picking us up at the bus stop, families knowing each other from generations back. But all that’s changed. Immigrants are everywhere now—not just in cities, but in suburbs. And they are all kinds of immigrants, from doctors to men who wash cars. For instance, in Fairfax County, VA, a suburban area just outside Washington, D.C., some of the school districts have more students who speak a foreign language, and whose parents were born elsewhere, than American-born families. In one part of Denver, CO, the school district has gone from being working class whites to over 60 percent Hispanic.

But of course, when you have so much change, and so much diversity with immigrants, there’s bound to be frictions. Some states have grown openly hostile to immigrants. In Arizona, there was a controversial law enacted, allowing law enforcement officers to stop anyone who might look suspiciously like an undocumented immigrant. IIn Long Island there was a rash of “Mexican jumping”, one terrible incident leading to the death of a Latino day laborer. But there are other places such as Cook County, outside Chicago, where they pride themselves in being a ‘mosaic’ suburb, made up of so many different cultures.

The suburb I portray—Meadowbrook—is just on the cusp of that change. Most of the immigrants live on the fringes, in apartment houses, since this is an expensive place to live, or the commute in to work there. And they are the underpinning of the town—they cut the lawns and hedges, or serve as nannies and maids—they’re the invisible people that make suburban life possible.

What I hope is that all this change is opening the eyes of American teenagers. That they can see there other ways to be, other languages, other experiences that can enrich theirs. That it shows them they are part of a global world.

But that means getting used to a lot of changes, right on their street, right in their schools.
 
You can find Marina Budhos here:
-Website
-Goodreads
 
Here is the book trailer if you would like to know more about Tell Us We're Home.
 

Guest Post: Keary Taylor (Branded)

Today I have the awesome Keary Taylor, author of Branded, stopping by!

What was the process of transforming the idea of terrifying angels into Branded?

Before I dive into explaining my take on the whole angel mythology, I’ll give you a little background on where the idea first formed. I was watching “The Phantom of the Opera” one night with my husband. This wasn’t the first time I’d seen the new version but I LOVE the music in it. For some reason this time as I watched it, the term “angel of music” really stuck with me. I’d first asked for the soundtrack for Christmas when I was 12, but for some reason I’d never given this term much thought. If you don’t know, Christine Daae’s (the main character) father used to tell her about the “angel of music” before he died so this was what she started calling the Phantom. But the Phantom wasn’t what you’d normally think of as an angel. He had this wretched face, he haunted the opera house, he took what he wanted. He gave no thought to doing all these terrible things. He was a terrifying man and yet Christine still called him an “angel”.

And then there is another line in one of Christine’s songs. “He’s there, the Phantom of the opera, inside my mind.” And here’s where I got the idea for a woman who had nightmares of terrifying angels. From here I branched away. It seemed only natural that the angels should be beautiful. But they were SO beautiful it was terrifying.

Ideas sometimes just form on their own and evolve as you start to write. Normally it would seem natural for the council of angels Jessica stands trial before to be all good angels but why shouldn’t the bad ones get representation too? And maybe not all of them were actually just? As they say, misery loves company.

The main evolution of my terrifying angels just came from my idea of looking at an accepted view and turning it to look different. Becoming a writer has made me look at everything I read in a completely new way. There’s nothing more satisfying than coming up with something no one else had thought of before!

Want to know more about Branded? Check out the Goodreads page.

Here is the cover of the second book in the Fall of Angels series, Forsaken. It will be published in January 2011 so make sure to check it out! Here you can find out more about Keary Taylor:

Her blog.

Her website.